Falling Without Return
by Zeira-chan
Summary: Lucy doesn't like waking up early, but seeing her guild mates always brings a smile to her face. What is the mission that Erza chose for their team and why does Lucy feel so comfortable around Gray?
1. Prologue

The morning sun made its way through a small gap between the curtains, the ray falling on the peaceful face of a blonde girl. She was dreaming about all the beautiful things in the world, like colourful meadows and rainbows prettier than the ones she ever saw; of colours that usually hadn't belonged to a rainbow – up until she heard the terrifying noise of a clock alarm. The girl instantly furrowed her eyebrows, still having her eyes closed and trying to blindly reach for the alarm clock with her hand. As usual, she didn't end up finding it, so she was forced to open her eyelids.

"Stupid alarm clock, stupid mornings…" she muttered, still half asleep while she sat up and put on her pink, comfy slippers.

It took her about an hour to get ready, because she had to take the morning shower, put on some makeup and find clothes that she actually felt like wearing that day. Unfortunately, she didn't have enough time to eat breakfast as she knew she had to meet up with her team at the Magnolia train station at 9 o'clock. They were going on a mission unknown to Lucy, but she was soon going to find out about it.

When she arrived at the train station, she saw that her friends were already there. It instantly brought a smile to her face, seeing the usual scene of Gray and Natsu fighting with each other when Erza wasn't looking and was busy eating strawberry cake. She must have bought it at the recently opened bakery, not far away from the station.

"I guess cakes are also good as breakfast, huh?" Lucy said when she walked up towards them, with an amused smile on her lips. The red haired girl stopped chewing for a second and furrowed her eyebrows, which was a bit intimidating.

"Hey I didn't mean to upset you…" the blonde laughed sheepishly and took a step back, putting her arms in front of herself defensively. She knew that cakes were a sensitive topic for Erza.

"Only strawberry cakes are good for breakfast."

Erza replied proudly and focused her attention back to eating. Whenever she looked at the two guys they looked calm, but in reality they didn't even want to board the same train.

"Right." Lucy snickered quietly, happy that she was able to avoid conflict.

When Natsu heard the announcement that their train was going to arrive in a couple of minutes, he was already green from thinking about a train ride. It was always quite funny for the celestial mage, because she never understood how he could get motion sickness just by thinking about it.

So the boys finally stopped arguing thanks to this distraction, for now.

"Pathetic." said Gray, looking at Natsu. Pinky still managed to give him a glare while suffering through motion sickness, without motion. Gray made eye contact with Lucy and smiled softly. She returned the smile and that was their usual greeting. They never had to say anything to each other and could start talking without saying 'hi', but somehow they didn't talk much and they weren't best friends like Lucy was with Levy.

They just knew they could trust each other and count on each other. They were friends and guildmates.

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 **I do not own Fairy Tail, but I own this story. Everyone says this, so there you go. I probably won't say this again under other chapters.**

 **This is my first fan-fiction in English. I hope that I didn't make any mistakes, but if I did, please let me know ;) My English is fluent, but it's never going to be my native language and I probably will make a couple small mistakes here and there. After uploading this chapter I actually realised how short it is, so I'm sorry for that. I actually thought this would be long enough as it took me a page in Word and I was proud of that. I'm not really sure how many chapters this story is going to have, but I probably shouldn't leave it like this. It's more like a prologue now than anything else.**

 **Anyways, please review and tell me what you think! I'm quite anxious whether you guys will like it, but I wanted to write a story for a long time and I might as well share it here.**


	2. The Town Called Cedar

Once they boarded the train, Erza sat next to Natsu to knock him out completely. Her excuse was that it actually helps him not to suffer while travelling and both Lucy and Gray didn't have any objections to that, since Dragneel was always quite happy knowing he avoided motion sickness.

Sitting next to Gray, Lucy looked at his bored expression while he absentmindedly looked at the window, with his elbow resting on the table. His hand was put behind his neck and Titania was currently taking a nap with Natsu's head on her lap.

Therefore, Lucy felt quite lonely and decided to subtly poke Gray's shoulder with her finger to get his attention. She didn't want to scare him since he wasn't very focused on his surroundings at that moment and somehow - she thought that was better than speaking immediately. The raven haired male was quite startled when that happened and he raised his eyebrows as if surprised, quickly turning his head towards the girl.

"Hm?" was the only thing he said as they made eye contact. The palm of his hand was now resting on his chin with his elbow still on the table as he awaited a response from the celestial mage. Ever since they sat in the train Lucy started wondering about Juvia and decided that she'd ask him about her.

"You know, I was just thinking that Juvia was supposed to come with us, but she hasn't. Do you know why?" she asked quite curious and put on a little smile. She knew that Juvia was head over heels in love with Gray and usually wouldn't miss such an opportunity. She watched as Gray sighed and avoided eye contact. His expression was somehow lonely, but also annoyed.

"She was probably busy or something."

He didn't sound convincing, but she didn't want to question him further and they left the conversation at that. Gray was the type of guy who didn't say much and she understood why Natsu was his complete opposite. The ice mage seemed quite mysterious at times and sometimes because of how coldly he spoke or acted, he was pushing people away from himself.

A couple of hours passed and they finally arrived in a town called Cedar. Just then, Lucy realized that she still hasn't asked Erza about their mission.

"So what is it that we're supposed to do here?" she asked, walking next to Erza with the guys following behind.

"The citizens here don't get any other protection than from the local knights. Apparently mages were forbidden to live here, because the citizens don't want to see chaos and damage caused by magic. I can understand that they want peace, but without magic their town and its people aren't safe." She replied firmly, focused on the road ahead of them. They were already close to the center of the Cedar town. From what Lucy understood, they had to help protect the town.

"Hold on, if mages aren't allowed to live here, then what happened?" Lucy furrowed her eyebrows, trying to figure out what went wrong. Surely, the knights would be enough to stop robbery and other minor crimes. Lucy was surprised when the answer came out from Gray, who followed behind.

"Technically speaking, the dark guilds and its mages could still come to this town and-" he was about to finish his sentence, but Erza stopped him and turned around, so she could talk to everyone. They stopped walking.

"They wouldn't, even if visits are allowed for everyone as long as they come back to their own towns at the end of the same day. This town is quite beautiful, but it has no value for other guilds or mages. Only ordinary people live here. It makes me wonder why all the knights disappeared." The red haired girl now sat on the nearby bench and looked around for any signs of suspicious behavior.

"Disappeared? B-but…" the blonde mage felt quite confused and scared. She never was the bravest person and it wasn't nice hearing about other people's disappearance. In fact, it wasn't just one person that disappeared. There were hundreds of knights protecting the whole town and now they were all gone. Suddenly, she felt someone's hand on her shoulder. Gray was standing behind her.

"It's okay Lucy. We'll find them." He said reassuringly. Things like this didn't happen often, but Lucy smiled softly seeing this side of Gray. He would always show that he cares for her, even with the smallest gestures.

It seemed like everyone forgot about Natsu, who was now inside the restaurant, already eating his food. The restaurant was just in front of the bench Erza sat on, so Salamander wouldn't miss such an opportunity. Everyone sighed and Gray felt the urge to face palm, but instead he said:

"That idiot."

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 **I hope you like this chapter! I didn't really like the first one, so I was quite motivated to write something better. Unfortunately I've always been someone who doesn't write lots and lots, so this chapter is short too. Maybe I'll work on chapter length in the future. I'm slowly starting to have more ideas. I hope this chapter wasn't confusing?**

 **Please review and tell me what you think :)**


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